


Prisoner's Dilemma

by AvocadoLove



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Identity Porn, M/M, Secret Identity, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-01
Updated: 2014-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-07 01:32:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1113925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvocadoLove/pseuds/AvocadoLove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After taking the airplane down in the Arctic, Steve wakes to find himself imprisoned as a human test subject. With no idea where in the world he is, his only ally is a fast-talking inventor in the cell next door. Something’s off about Tony that Steve can’t put his finger on, and it’s obvious Tony doesn't fully trust him either. But to escape they may not have a choice…</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Primarily marvel movie universe, with canon divergence during the first Iron Man movie.

  
  


The plane hit ice with a squeal of metal and shattering glass. Seawater rushed in, so cold it was hot. Steve gasped in a breath before the seawater covered his head, angling his body for the broken windshield.  If he could get out, he might have half a chance.

Above him, the lights flickered and died and the metal screeched as the airplane settled, sank, with him still in it. Desperately, Steve tried to orient himself, find up from down, but it was so cold he couldn’t feel… and he needed air…

… and then…

Steve woke with a pleasantly heavy feeling in limbs, like he’d been down for awhile and finally gotten a good rest. For one moment -- one long, comfortable moment -- he thought he was in his pup-tent with the commandos. It was time to get up and drink a cup of joe with Bucky and the boys.

No. Bucky was dead. Red Skull was gone--taken up and vanished literally into thin air -- and Steve was ... in a jail cell?

He blinked and looked around.

It was a large cell, by his estimates. Maybe eight by twenty-two. Not that Steve had ever been a jailbird, but he’d seen the tiny cages the 107th had been kept in.

He was laying on a single metal plate that served as a bed, bolted down to the wall with a simple sheet thrown over it. The floor was gray concrete, and the front of the cell was a wall of interlocking bars with a reinforced steel door.

An older man stood on the other side of those bars, in the hallway beyond. He was balding, had a pounchy gut and a fancy dark blue suit of a cut Steve had never seen before. He stared at Steve with interest, chewing the end of an unlit cigar.

Steve sat up and a wave of weakness stole over him, making him brace an arm against the nearby wall to catch himself. That’s when he saw his right arm had a green tracing of raised veins from his wrist all the way up to the crook of his elbow.

“Whoa there son,” the older man said genially. “You may want to take it easy for a few minutes. I’ve been told palladium poisoning packs a punch.”

“Philladum?” Steve tried the word and found it unfamiliar.

The man smiled. “Among other things. We had to pump in a veritable cocktail to keep you down for transport. Don’t worry, you body will clear it out soon. That’s… really the point.”

So this man knew what his serem-enhanced body was capable of. Steve straightened, dropping his arm.

“Am I a prisoner of war?” he asked. The man’s gravelly voice sounded American, with no other accent he could place, but Steve had encountered Nazi defectors before.

The man spread his hands, looking charmed. “You’re a guest of my facility.”

“Guests usually aren’t behind bars,” he noted.

“Point. But nevertheless you, Captain, are going to help me save the world.”

He didn’t like where this was going. Centering himself, he stood. The concrete was cold under his bare feet, but his legs held him and the dizziness was rapidly fading. His body was taking care of whatever had kept him asleep. “You and I both know I can do my part better on the front lines, sir.”

The man smiled again and Steve got the uncomfortable impression he’d just performed some trick, like a dancing bear at a circus, but he wasn’t sure what it was.

“You’re really something special,” the man said. “But I’m less interested in your fighting ability than what’s in your blood.”

He was after the serem, then. Steve wasn’t surprised -- he always had a feeling it would come to this one day. He stood at parade rest and let his gaze drift over the bars of the cell again. The places were they sunk into the concrete and around the door would be the weakest links. “And why would I help you with that?” he asked, more to keep the man talking than anything else.

The man took a step forward. Steve could almost reach between the bars and grab him. If he had a key on him…

“Because your metabolism runs much higher than the average person’s, and you need to eat. Three meals a day in exchange for an occasional collection of blood. That’s all I ask, Captain.” The man replaced the cigar in his mouth. “Think about it. We’ll talk later.”

He made to leave, and Steve blurted, “Wait, where am--”

“Oh, and if you want my advice?” The man turned back and gestured to the bars. “These are adamantium -- indestructible, and expensive, by the way. They also pack one hell of a punch. I wouldn’t get too close.”

Then he walked away.

 

****

 

Turns out ‘one hell of a punch’ meant that the bars were electrified. Steve heard the hum as he got close. When he tapped one with the back of his hand, searing fire raced up his arm. He jerked back, ringing his hand. His fingers were numb for a moment or two, before returning to normal.

Okay, so he wasn’t getting out by way of the bars then.

He couldn’t see down the hall to any other cells, if there were any,  so he spent the next several hours going over every inch of his enclosure. Apart from the bed, toilet,  and sink, there was no other fixtures. The back and side walls were made of cinderblock, though short of punching his way through -- and that would cause a racket which would send the guards -- he had no way to break through. No windows to give him an edge. The only hint of decay was a quarter-sized mouse hole on the back wall by his bed.

Steve’s uniform was gone. He was dressed in a simple white shirt and loose white pants with an odd, stretchy waistband. The shirt had ‘StaneTech’ stitched in the front where a pocket would be. (The stitching was of fine machine quality -- apparently everything about this place was expensive.)  Steve had worried he’d been captured by another offshoot of HYDRA -- they’d done human testing before -- but this seemed more and more like a private venture.

There had to be a way to use that to his advantage. Maybe the guards would be less disciplined. Steve might be able to chat one of them up, befriend him. Get a message out to Peggy or Colonel Phillips.

His next visit came several hours later; two guards and a woman in tow. The men wore non-descript dark uniforms with button-up shirts, the waistband riding low on the hips. The woman had a knee-length skirt, blouse and a white lab coat.  

Steve was sitting on his bed, but straightened at their approach, his feet flat on the floor. Balance centered.

“Good morning Captain Rogers,” the woman said, opening a vertical slat in the steel door and loading a tray of food. She wasn’t shocked by the electricity, which was interesting because if Steve concentrated he could still hear the persistent hum of a current.

“Ma’am,” he said, nodding faintly. The other two guards loomed behind her, obviously her protection. As if Steve would ever hurt a woman.

She indicated a wide gap in the bars to the left of the door. “Please put your arm through here. You will receive your meal after we draw your blood.”

“I don’t think so,” Steve said amiably enough. But inside he was tense. Waiting.

The woman didn’t react. Not even a blink. Instead, she took out a clipboard from under her arm and made a notation on it.

“How many others do you have caged up like this?” Steve asked, watching closely for a reaction. Again, he was disappointed. “How did you find me after my plane crashed?” It had been something eating at him over the last few hours: How did these StaneTech people find him before Colonel Phillips’ men had?

The woman looked up from the clipboard. Her gaze was unwelcoming and wholly clinical. “Are you refusing your meal?”

Steve’s stomach pinched in with a pang of hunger. “I’m afraid so, ma’am. I won’t let you duplicate the serum.”

She nodded, took the tray back, and left.

He let out a long breath. Well, that was anti-climatic. But he still waited until the footsteps had receded down the hall to move to the side and remove the two long strips of fabric he’d torn from his sheet. It wasn’t much, but if they came in and tried to force him he might be able to use it as a garrotte.

He didn’t think these were the kind of people to allow obstinence.

He was right. When they returned a few hours later, and Steve refused, one of the men withdrew a pistol and shot at him. Steve jerked out of the way of the first bullet. The second one hit his shoulder with a sting -- no, it wasn’t a bullet at all. It was a dart.

Another dart hit his thigh and a wave of sudden weakness made him stumble. The door opened and the two guards rushed in. Steve got in a good punch to the first fellow, but his reactions were slow. It felt like he were moving in thick, clinging water. They knocked him down with a fight, but they still knocked him down.

It took five minutes for the serem to burn out whatever they’d put in him. It took only half that for them to remove a small vial’s worth of blood.

They left the tray of food and a small cup of water behind.

 

****

  
  
  


It’s the hunger that irritated him more than the boredom. It was ridiculous because Steve had been hungry plenty of times as a kid. Brooklyn winters could be bitter, medicine wasn’t cheap, and his mother had to work double shifts as a waitress while his father drank everything away. Sometimes he’d come home from school and the lights wouldn’t turn on for weeks on end. Or, more often, he’d be sick in bed, hungry and shivering under every blanket in the house because firewood was expensive and oil more so.

He’d been bored and hungry before. He could do it again.

Steve clenched his fingers into a fist. Assuming he was being fed three times a day (and his growling stomach protested otherwise) he’d been a ‘guest’ here close to a week. He’d endured three blood draws, and he was no closer to befriending the guards, or finding a single weak point to his cage. (He’d tried the bars at least once a day -- adamantium was strong and the electric shocks hurt every single time.)

In his moments not spent exercising or searching for a way out, he wondered what Peggy was doing now. Wondered what Colonel Phillips must think of him -- dead, most likely. Steve tried and failed not to imagine Peggy waiting alone at the Stork club. And Bucky… why, they must have buried him by now, or an empty casket in his name. There hadn’t been time to look for the body, or properly grieve before the last strike on HYDRA’s base.

Now Steve had nothing but time, and he didn’t want it. Bucky’s death was a hole in his heart, not even scabbed over. Maybe it never would.

Steve sighed and leaned his head back against the back wall, closing his eyes. Maybe if he got some sleep...

“...never work… what, is this crap written in base eight?...”

Steve’s eyes snapped open and he looked around. What is that? The guards aren’t prone to conversation within his hearing. Could it be a radio?

“...they’ll let anyone graduate these days… the power source should go here, not…”

Steve glanced down. The voice, barely rising above a murmur, was coming from the mouse-hole he’d noticed in the back wall wall near his bed.

Glancing to the cell door to make sure none of the guards are doing their sweep, he crouched down and called, “Hello?”

The monologue stopped mid-sentence, and Steve’s heart leapt. Not a radio. A real life person. He tried again. “Hi, can you hear me?”

Another moment of silence, then. “Please don’t tell me I’m hearing voices. Schizophrenia is not a good look on me.”

It wasn’t funny, but Steve felt a quick smile pull at his lips anyway. The first one since they brought him here. It felt like forever.

“No, I’m real. Are you another prisoner?” Steve asked.

“Are you?” the man -- because it’s definitely male -- shot back. His voice was much closer now and Steve imagined the other man might be crouched next to the mouse-hole on his side.

Steve glanced around his enclosure. “From the look of my cell, I’d say I was a prisoner. Yeah.”

The man snorted. “You want me to just take your word for it? For all I know you’re another one of Obie’s little tests. Get me to befriend you, spill all my deepest secrets.”

Or maybe you’re the mole, the uncharitable part of Steve thought. He shook his head. “Well, I don’t exactly have a way to prove anything to you.”

“Actually, strike that. I don’t care.” The man spoke quickly as if coming a snap decision. “At this point I’d talk to you if you were a voice inside my head. It’s so quiet, and I don’t do quiet well.”

Steve was starting to get that impression, which was fine. He needed intel. “How long have you been in here?”

“Don’t know. They didn’t exactly furnish my digs, and the computers they gave me make an Apple 2 look hot. I seriously have to boot up with a floppy. The big ones.”

“Um.” Steve understood maybe a word or two of that. His stomach focused on the important parts. “They give you apples?”

A pause. “I’m talking about before iPods--nevermind. You sound too young to remember, and even if I did have one, I don’t share my playlists with strangers.”

He decided to return to the part of the conversation that made sense. “I’ve been here a week, give or take.” He thought back. “It was December 11th, last I knew.”

“December? Huh. I’ve been here nine months, then. I thought it was more than that, but you know what they say about time flying when you’re having fun…”

“Yeah,” Steve muttered, looking around his bare cell. Lots of fun.

“Sooo, what did you do to piss Obie off?”

That was the second time the man mentioned that name. “Who?”

“Obadiah Stane,” he said impatiently. “Old guy. Loves cigars, kinda looks like The Dude’s evil capitalist pig twin brother -- Which would make a great sequel, by the way.”

Steve decided his new pal on the other side of the wall might have been alone a touch too long. “I don’t exactly know.” The oncoming lie felt like an itch at the back of his throat. The public knew his general story, but most of the details were classified and, well, there was no need to spill everything. Just in case. “I’m just a soldier. I was in a plane crash -- I didn’t think I’d get out of it, to be honest, but I woke up here.”

“Uh-huh.” Sure enough, the man didn’t sound like he believed him. Steve was a terrible liar. Always had been. “What branch?”

“Army, in the 107th,” he said. “What about you? Why are you here?”

“Me? Eh, I build them neat stuff. I try not to oblige Obie, but sometimes he makes his arguments...pretty compelling.”

Steve brightened. “So you’re an inventor.” He could use a big brain on his side. Howard Stark’s gadgets were invaluable in the war, and if this man was half as talented they might have a chance.

“I prefer futurist actually,” he said easily.  “My name’s Tony. So what do I call you, soldier?”

He hesitated. Keeping to first names was a little informal, and spoke loud and clear that Tony didn’t fully trust Steve. The feeling was mutual. Steve was in a strange, unfriendly place and it was difficult to put his faith in a man he couldn’t see.

“I’m Steve. Pleased to meet you, Tony.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

Steve counted the approaching footsteps silently in his head. At the forty-third step, a guard came into view, holding a food tray. The fella was almost painfully pale, with perpetually rosy cheeks and busted capillaries along either side of his nose.  
  
The guard said nothing, just stood back and watched Steve for any tomfoolery, the meal tray in hand. Steve stared back with a carefully blank expression he’d mastered back when his mother used to drag him out for church Sunday.  
  
Apparently satisfied Steve wasn’t itching for trouble, the guard loaded the tray onto the door slat, then continued his patrol in the opposite direction -- fifty steps before Steve heard the door at the end of the hall open and shut.  
  
Steve bent to the mouse-hole. “Tony?”  
  
There was a pause and a scuffle as Tony joined him at his side of the wall. “‘sup?”  
  
Sup? Odd fella. “Forty-three steps, entering from the right. Fifty exiting to the left.”  
  
“Great. Who was it this time?”  
  
“Dolly.”  
  
None of the guards wore name tags, so a couple days ago Steve and Tony put their heads together and came up with monikers. The high color in that guard’s cheeks reminded Steve of the dolls some of the girls used to carry around after school when he was a child. Steve also called a painfully thin, slow witted guard ‘Scarecrow’. (If only he had a brain…).  
  
Tony’s nicknames were equally ridiculous. Honey Boo Boo for a large, round-faced man, and Dubya for one with a twangy Texan accent.  
  
“I’ll note it down,” Tony said briskly. “Dolly didn’t pass by my door on his way out -- Pretty sure they’re walking pattern 5a today, but we’ll see if someone comes by in three hours.”  
  
Learning the guards routines was a first step for forming a solid escape plan. The patrols weren’t random, as Steve had first thought. Together, they’d learned there were five variations of different patrol times, and sometimes the guards walked counter-clockwise instead of clockwise around the cellblock. The different directions were A and B.  
  
Steve nodded, even though he knew Tony couldn’t see him, and rose to collect his tray of food.  
  
The meal was, as always, a slice of bologna between two bizarrely identical pieces of white bread with a thin scrape of mayonnaise for flavor. In a square indent of the tray, there were chunks of what might have been fruit, but tasted like the syrup they’d been canned in, and a dry dinner roll. A small cup of water rounded out the meal.  
  
Before the serum, this would have been a generous amount. Now, Steve made himself chew slowly to make it last.  
  
After, he set the tray back on the lip of the door slat (the tray itself was made from some hard, light material that wasn’t metal, but didn’t seem to conduct the electricity that ran through the bars -- odd) and went to the middle of the cell to start doing pushups. He had to keep in shape. Had to do something other than stare at the walls.  
  
Take a breath on the way down. Touch the floor with his chest. Inhale on the way up. Hold for a moment. Take a breath on the way down…  
  
Steve’s mind started wandering as it usually did during a workout. He imagined for the thousandth time what the Commandos were doing at this moment -- wondered if they’d been disbanded after the last raid, or if the mop-up of the last HYDRA bases was taking longer than expected.  
  
First thing he’d do when he was able was get a telegram out. It might take awhile to reach anyone, especially if his boys were deep behind enemy lines, but he ought to let them know he was still alive.  
  
Though sometimes he imagined just showing up without notice, back from the dead. The looks on their faces. Oh, how Howard would swear. Peggy might even shoot at him again. She’d forgive him in the end, though.  
  
After his arms were good and tired and he'd risen to wash away the worst of the sweat using water from the sink (there was no shower, but Steve got by the best he could) Steve still felt the pull of the daydream. A telegram might cost too much to send overseas. So, laying on the bed, he turned to the mouse-hole and asked Tony where he thought they were being held.  
  
“New York,” Tony said at once. “Probably upstate.”  
  
“Upstate? You think?”  
  
“Obie’s always been an East Coast man. He’s not old money, but wishes he was. Anyway, this building would draw too much attention of it were in the city. The power draw for their experiments would raise a few eyebrows, and he'd want me close enough to stay under his thumb,” Tony said with cool arrogance.  
  
“Why’s that?”  
  
But he didn’t receive an answer. Steve had learned quickly that Tony zipped his lips whenever it came to something personal. Steve knew why -- it was the same reason he didn’t bring up Project: Rebirth. There was something… off about this place, and Tony. Something he couldn’t put his finger on.  
  
What if… what if Tony were one of StaneTech’s men? Maybe a headshrinker assigned to keep Steve bare company, play along with him in a fictional “escape” plan.  
  
Also, Tony never asked about the state of the war. Even though Steve was more recently imprisoned out of the two of them, Tony hadn’t brought it up, almost like he didn’t care. Steve hated to think it, but part of him wondered if Tony was hiding something. Surely an inventor/futurist was needed badly. Maybe Tony had run away? Surely, he wasn’t a Nazi sympathizer.  
  
Steve thought about asking once or twice, but couldn’t find a polite way to bring it up. It was cowardly, but he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.  
  
But these were thoughts Steve had had before, and surely Tony had his suspicions about Steve in turn. So he turned his mind away from old worries and focused on the problem at hand: Tony figured they were in New York? Why, if that was true then he was nearly home. It hurt a little to think about -- so close, but still so far away. “I figured we were in Europe.”  
  
Tony’s snort was derisive. “Except our guards have US accents. Have you heard Dubya? The man does his namesake proud.”  
  
Steve shrugged and turned on his side, looking at the mouse-hole. “People move around. It’s a brand new world, Tony. All types of people are mixing together nowadays. Borders between countries mean less than what they did before.”  
  
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t talk to me about globalization. I practically invented globalization.”  
  
Steve mouthed ‘globalization’ to himself. Sounded like a fancy term Howard Stark would use. He was going to introduce Tony to the man after this was over.  
  
“Maybe,” Steve said, “But take me. I grew up in Brooklyn.” He’d been throwing out occasional facts about himself, hoping Tony would warm up in kind. So far, he hadn’t. “It’s a real melting pot -- and it wasn’t always like that.” Now Irish lived practically door-to-door with Italian and Polish folks. There was even a growing Jewish neighborhood springing up on the east end.  
  
There was a long pause before Tony said, “I was born in Manhattan.”  
  
“Really?” Steve grinned. “Well heck, maybe you and I passed each other on the street sometime.”  
  
“Probably. I was the handsome billionaire running into a town car to escape mobs of photographers.”  
  
Steve chuckled. “That was you?” he teased back. “You wouldn’t have recognized me from before. I, uh, had a growth spurt in the army.”  
  
“What, did they make you shave your head? Get a tattoo? Ohh, wait. Muscles? You bulked up, didn’t you?” Tony asked. “So: body type. Are you more of a football or basketball player?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Just trying to get a picture here, Steve-o.”  
  
He felt his cheeks grow warm, though it was a reasonable question. “Baseball, I guess,” he blurted, only half-understanding what Tony was asking. He’d be ace in any team in the league with his sprinting speed and quick reactions.  
  
“Baseball, eh? Hmm. Well proportioned, then.” Tony’s voice was rich and warm and… surely he didn’t mean for it to sound as he did. They barely knew each other, and a man ought to be careful with… with conversations like this.  
  
 _That never stopped Bu--_  
  
Steve slammed that half-formed thought away. He drew in a quick breath. “What about you?”  
  
“Sadly, my body’s made for hours of intense labwork, not chasing a ball -- Great hair, though. I’m not gonna lie. Your eye color? Hair color?”  
  
“Dishwater blond,” Steve admitted. The girls always liked tall, dark, and handsome and…everything but him. “Blue eyes.”  
  
“Brown and brown. But like I said, the hair’s awesome.”  
  
Steve rolled his eyes. “I bet.” Though Peg had brown hair and eyes. Bucky, too. Maybe Steve had a type. Swallowing, he tried to swing their talk to more socially acceptable territory. “You got a dame waiting for you at home?”  
  
He didn’t expect Tony to bark out a laugh. “You’re really playing up a rat-pack angle, aren’t you?” But before Steve could ask what that meant, Tony continued, “No, I don’t. But when I get out...well, there will be changes.”  
  
“Changes?”  
  
“Changes,” Tony agreed, but his voice had gone remote. The warmth gone. “Well, I gotta get back to work. These weapons aren’t going to design themselves.”  
  
“What are you working on?” Steve asked without real hope for an answer. The last time he tried, Tony had replied with something snarky about a “smart phone”, which--fine. If he didn’t want to tell him, Steve wasn’t going to press. Their fragile companionship took them far enough for some joking around, but nothing past that.  
  
Sure enough, Tony’s voice had a hard edge. “Oh, you know. Planning more spectacular ways to make things go boom.”  
  
“Any bright ideas on blasting us out of here?”  
  
“We’ll see,” he said vaguely. If I did, I don’t trust you enough to tell you, was loud and clear between them.  
  
Steve sighed and sat up, resting his head against the back of the wall, resigned to another few hours of boredom until the next guard walked by. “Have fun.”  
  
Maybe some of his frustration leaked through, because Tony asked, “Don’t you have a project or something to keep you busy?”  
  
 _Why would they?_ Steve thought. _All they want from me is my blood._ “No.”  
  
“Keeping you around for your good looks, huh soldier?” Tony said. “No, but seriously. No board games? Computer?”  
  
He snorted. As if they could fit a whole computer in this room. “Funny, but no.”  
  
“Hold on a sec.” Tony disappeared from the hole, then there was a rustling sound. “I got a few books -- nothing fancy. What’s your poison? Tolkien? Game of Thrones? Not my cup of tea, but I hear there’s lots of sex and blood in it. What else? One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest -- Obie’s trying to be funny there, what a tool. The Time Machine--”  
  
Steve perked up. “I haven’t read H.G. Wells since I was a kid.”  
  
“Time Machine it is.” There was a ripping sound, then something poked through the hole: papers. It was the pages of a book. The binding and cover were too big to fit, but the pages could be rolled into a tube and shoved through the quarter-size hole.  
  
“I also have Watership Down, if you’re into death and bunny rabbits.”  
  
Steve murmured a thanks, but once he saw the fine paper, the clear ink and even typeset, he felt a little bad. Tony had just destroyed what was clearly an expensive book. “It’s fine. I’ll keep busy with this.”  
  
“Suit yourself,” Tony said and went back to whatever he was doing that made a rhythmic clacking sound. A lot like a typewriter, but softer.  
  
  
  


****

 

 

The far hallway opened three hours later on the dot.

“Rats,” Steve cursed, hearing three sets of footsteps instead of the usual single guard. Another blood draw, then. Hurriedly, he slipped the loose pages of The Time Machine under the topsheet of his bed. Then he bent by the mouse-hole and muttered, “I have company,” before he stood to face his oncoming visitors.

It wasn’t the lady doctor, come for more blood. It was Obadiah Stane.

“Captain,” Stane said in greeting. Scarecrow and Dubya flanked his back. “I understand you’ve been less than cooperative about our blood draws.”

Steve didn’t need to see Scarecrow’s hand drift to his holstered dart-gun to know this was going to end only one way. So Steve shifted his stance slightly to the right instead of facing them full-on to present less of a target. The serum had made him ambidextrous, but he was still a fraction quicker with his right hand than his left.

“I don’t see why I should be, seeing as you’re the one holding me against my will and keeping me from the front.”

Stane took a step closer to the cell bars. The almost jolly glee that had marked their first meeting was gone, replaced by darker, wry amusement. “The war’s going fine without you, Captain Rogers. Trust me when I say you aren’t needed there anymore.”

“That so? Then why don’t you bring me a current newspaper?” Steve shot back. “I’ll judge for myself.”

He didn’t expect Stane’s visible pause. Nor for him to shoot a silent glare back at his guards. They both shrugged in reply.

Dubya shook his head. “We haven’t said a word.”

“What’s the matter? Newspapers in English scarce around here?” Steve asked. Maybe they were Nazi’s after all.  

Stane considered him. “I’ll see what I can rustle up. Would that be acceptable? A newspaper in exchange for an untainted vial of blood?”

Untainted. Ah, so the Palladium or whatever goop they'd injected him with was playing havoc with their lab work.

“That, and I want to speak to Colonel Phillips. I need to get a message out to my boys. Personally.”

“That won’t be possible,” Stane said, a wry note to his tone.

Steve shrugged. He knew that was an almost impossible request. This wasn’t a clandestine operation, though by keeping him caged up, Stane and his company was treating the outcome of the war like a game. “Then I guess you’re going to have bad test results.”

Something dark moved behind Stane’s eyes. “This is me asking nicely, Captain.”

“This is me declining, sir.” Steve made sure to flash him his brightest smile. The one he used to use for war bond pitches.

Stane took another step closer, pitching his voice low. “You think I don’t know what’s going on here? That I haven’t seen what you’re up to? I know about your little glory-hole between the cells.”

Steve felt himself go very still.

Stane whipped around and jabbed his finger in the direction of an odd little box set in the upper corner of the hallway, the end of it pointed roughly to Steve’s cell. It hadn’t looked much like a gun, which was why he had ignored it. “See that? That’s my eye on you, twenty-four seven. It shows my people what you’re doing at all times, and who you’re talking to.”

Like a movie camera, only the movie was him. Steve’s heart plummeted, but he clenched his jaw to keep any reaction from showing on his face. He had known this was a possibility. “Then Tony is working for you?”

Stane chuckled, suddenly all good humor again. “Tony, Tony, Tony… No. Believe it or not, that little piss-ant’s more trouble than you ever were, or will be.”

“With all due respect,” Steve said, “You haven’t known me very long.”

That got a genuine laugh. Stane cocked his head, regarding Steve like he had the first day: Like Steve was an animal who had just completed an amusing trick. “I know you better than you think, Captain. Or at least, I’ve had my staff psychologist pour over your military files to see what makes you tick. You probably ought to thank him. He convinced me it was in your best interest to keep a few pertinent details about your situation to myself.”

For one moment -- one God awful moment -- Steve thought they’d sussed out his true feelings for Bucky. But no, they’d always been discreet. It wasn’t possible for a thing like that to show up in military files. There was no check-box for inverts or queers. This was about something else.

“Such as?” he asked, and was proud that his voice came out cool, almost uninterested.

Stane regarded Steve for a long moment. An evaluating look. “To Hell with it. I’ve always liked killing two birds with one stone.” He stepped back and gestured to the guards. “Dose him.”

Steve tensed, but focused on the muzzle of Scarecrow’s dart-gun. Clearing his mind and waiting for the pull of the trigger. The man fired, and Steve’s hand snapped out, catching the dart neatly between two fingers. He yelped -- half in surprise it had worked -- cupping his hand over his shoulder as if he’d actually been hit, and felt a sharp sting as Dubya’s dart hit his flank. But it usually took two, sometimes three darts, to knock him down.

One dart still packed a punch. A rush of dizziness came over him, and Steve stumbled to his knees, playing it up a little as if he’d gotten the full dose.

The cell door opened, and the two guards rushed in. It took all of Steve’s willpower to play drugged and docile enough to allow them to cuff his hands behind his back. Even woozy, he thought he had a chance of knocking out these two guards. Or at least getting past them.

But something was up -- there was clearly a very big part of a puzzle that Steve was not understanding. Stane was a man playing like he had an ace up his sleeve, and Steve knew his best bet for busting out of here was to learn what it was.

Science had made him into a soldier, but it had always been up to him not to be a stupid one.

“Wha’s goin’ on?” Steve slurred as they led him out. He leaned against Scarecrow more than what was necessary.

Stane clapped him on the shoulder as if they were pals. “Just a little show and tell.”

Normally, Steve wasn’t a violent man, but he promised himself that someway, somehow, Stane was going to end up with a broken nose by the end of this.

They marched him down the hallway. Even though he’d only been hit with one dart, Steve needed all his focus to keep himself upright and his feet under him. He subtly flexed his wrists against the cuffs -- there was a very slight give to the metal. He estimated he stood a good chance of breaking them if he needed.

The guards led him around one corner, then another. They were coming around the cell block, which meant--

Tony’s cell was the same size as Steve’s, but furnished. The lucky dog had a bookshelf tucked in one corner, a table loaded down with blueprints in the other. His bed even had blankets and pillows. Tony himself was bent towards a screen that looked a little like a radar detector on the top, and the keys to a typewriter on the bottom half. He turned at the sound of their approach.

In an odd way, Tony reminded Steve of Howard. Same build, same dark hair and scrupulous appearance to facial hair. Even the same irritated clench to their jaw. Why, Tony could be Howard’s older brother. He was dressed as Steve was, in a white shirt and loose white pants. But there was a strange circular light glowing from the middle of his chest.

_He’s not a mole_ , Steve thought with a tiny stirring of relief. _He is a prisoner, like me._   He hadn’t been sure if he should believe Stane or not when he told him Tony was a troublemaker.

“Obie. Pleasure to see you, as always.” Tony’s voice dripped sarcasm, and he didn’t bother rising at their approach. Just swiveled in his chair. “Who’s the beefcake?”

Stane looked as if he were relishing this moment. It set the hairs on the back of Steve’s neck crawling.

“I’m surprised you don’t recognize him. I remember Howard boxing up your memorabilia after he sent you to boarding school." He paused. "Tony Stark, meet Captain America.”

Tony’s dark eyes snapped to Steve.  “Bullshit.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay. I wrote the first scene like four or five times. Not an exaggeration. Truthfully, I'm still not 100% lovin' it, but at least it's serviceable, and now I can move onto the meat of the story. XD

"Stark?" Steve repeated. The tranq made his head feel like it was stuffed with cotton.  He didn't understand. Didn't want to understand. They couldn't mean... But hadn't Stane just said, ' I remember Howard boxing up your memorabilia after he sent you to boarding school.'?

Steve's eyes locked on Tony. On... Howard's son?

It was like the final snowflake that rests on an unstable drift. The tiniest last drop that collides into a chain reaction which starts an avalanche. All chaos and destruction - crashing and sliding together into terrible truth in his mind.

... The thin, crisp pages in the book. The light yet solid material that made up the meal tray, Tony's mention of a 'smart phone'.  The cruel smirk as Stane had said, "Trust me when I say you aren't needed on the front line..." And Tony never asked about the state of the war.

Howard's son. Tony was Howard's _son_.

"This isn't possible," he breathed, but he could barely hear himself. There was a high whine in his ears, like he'd been knocked over the head.

Distantly, he heard Stane continue.

"Amazing, isn't he, Tony? Doesn't look a day over twenty-five. When I found him in stasis under the ice, I hardly believed it."

"Why are you showing me this?" Tony's arms crossed over his chest, partially covering the odd circular light. He looked distinctly unimpressed. "Going to donate him to the Smithsonian? Let him molder with the rest of the relics?"

It was as good as a slap in the face. Steve's spine straightened. The cuffs flexed against his wrists, bending the metal. He stopped himself just short of breaking them -- Scarecrow was as dim as his nickname suggested, but Dubya was sharp.  

Even half-stunned, he knew he had to pick his moment because he was only going to get one.

"No, Tony." Stane waved a grand gesture to Steve. "This is your new project."

"My PHDs aren't in medical science," Tony replied, glancing briefly at Steve. He dropped an arm from his defensive posture. His two fingers on his right hand ticked slightly to the side.

Steve shifted his gaze, following the movement -- Dubya, the larger guard, was watching the confrontation between Stane and Tony with rapt attention -- almost hungrily. Completely ignoring Steve.

And Tony was calling Steve's attention to it. Interesting.

"So, what? You're trying to build a stable of Super soldiers?" Tony's eyebrows rose. "A harem?"

Stane barked a laugh. "You think I want super soldiers when I have the fountain of youth at my fingertips?"

Tony stilled, the contempt sliding from his face. "No. No biochemical weapons, no weaponized nanobots or nukes. And that," he nodded at Steve, "is a weapon."

"Tony, Tony, Tony." Stane took another step closer to the bars, and Steve didn't miss how Tony edged back. His body language still spoke of defiance, but there was real fear in his eyes. "I'm not asking you," Stane said, then clicked something in his hand. Steve heard the lock to Tony's door disengage.

He'd been waiting for his moment. This was it.

With a twist of his wrists, the metal cuffs broke with a sharp snap. Steve surged forward, grabbing Dubya and propelling the large guard face first into the cell bars. He turned in time to see Scarecrow withdraw something from his belt holster -- a gun?

Steve weaved to the side and kicked it out of Scarecrow's skinny hand. A rabbit punch to the jaw knocked him down for the count.

A squeak of shoes behind Steve told him that Dubya had regained his footing. He turned to see the guard come at him, his drawn gun in hand. Only it had two prongs at the end of the muzzle and--

The thing touched Steve, just under his ribs, bringing fire and pain shooting though his side, down his arms and legs. Steve staggered, then fell to his knees, more surprised than stunned.

He caught from the corner of his eye Stane hurrying into Tony's cell -- Why?

No time to think. Someone had raised an alarm. Claxons had started to sound around them. Through the pain, Steve reached up and grabbed the end of the not-gun. His fingers spazamed and clenched -- was this some sort of electricity? -- as more fire raced up his arm.

Steve gritted his teeth. The not-gun crumpled with a burst of sparks. Definitely electric, then. Dubya struck down, but Steve caught his wrist across his forearm and rose up to head-butt the other man. Dubya staggered back, his gaze unfocused and strange. Then he dropped like a sack of potatoes.

The door to Tony's cell was open, and Stane had run inside. He and Tony were fighting, struggling. Stane, larger, had shoved a writhing, cursing Tony against a table. His shirt was ripped.

At first Steve didn't understand. He took a step forward to help, then Stane's hand came away, clutching the glowing blue device.

The sound Tony made was guttural. His own hand fluttered over the gaping hole in his chest. Just like Stane had ripped out his heart.

"No!" Steve started forward, but Stane raised his hand, looking for all the world like he was willing to smash the device to the floor.

"Ah-uh," Stane said. "Not one step closer, Captain. Not unless you want your old friend's son to die of cardiac arrest."

Tony's skin had already gone a sickening gray. "Mother fucker," he snarled, lurching jerkingly to Stane. But he couldn't rise to his feet and Stane easily stepped out his reach. "You son of a bitch. You won't. Y-you need me--need my inventions..."

"Stane," Steve said carefully. "You don't need to do this."

Stane's lips twisted in a parody of a smile. "Stay right there. The alarm's been raised, and my people are on their way."

He didn't need to be told that. He could hear footsteps coming from down the hall. But Tony's breathing had taken a ragged, labored edge. He lay prone, gasping on the floor.

Steve moved.

The worst of the tranquilizer had already burned out of his system. He grabbed Stane's wrist and struck the man across the face. Stane crumpled, and Steve caught the lighted device as it fell from his fingers. Despite the electric blue glow, it was only warm with body heat.

Steve knelt by Tony, one hand coming around to cradle the back of his neck. "How?" he asked, at a loss on how to put the contraption back in. His eyes skipped over the gaping hole -- too deep to seem real, and ringed with metal, presumedly to keep tissue from growing in around it. Had Stane done this to him? Some sort of torture?

"Let me," Tony croaked. He reached a shaking hand to the device. Their fingers tangled together as Tony flipped it in Steve's grip and guided it down. Halfway guessing, Steve twisted the device and it engaged back in with an audible click. Tony gasped and arched, half-pain and half-relief.

Their eyes locked.

Then strong hands yanked Steve back. He felt a brief, sharp pressure on the side of his neck. Heard a hiss. Everything went black.

 

****

 

Steve woke up in his cell. Not a surprise. His internal clock told him he'd been out for a half-hour or more. He should get up, assess the situation -- the guards would be thrown, stranger things have happened than forgetting to lock a door after a crisis.  There might be an opening, a weakness Steve could exploit.

He didn't move.

He was in the future.

The knowledge rolled over Steve again; a sense of wonder and fear. He'd think it was a joke, except for the contraption in Mr. Stark's--in Howard's son's -- chest.

Howard's _son_ who was older than Steve by at least a decade. How long had Steve slept? Rip Van Winkle was only supposed to be a story...

What year--what _decade_ was this? Howard had been in his thirties. If he'd settled down and married a girl soon after Steve had crashed the plane -- maybe forty years? Dear lord, he might be in the 1980's.

And Peggy... oh Peg. It looked like Steve had truly missed their date.

He raised his hand to the light overhead. His skin was young, firm, and without wrinkles. Even if he slept a whole fifty years, it didn't look like it. Even people trapped in comas aged. He hadn't.

Everyone he knew was old or...

That thought was too big, too terrible to take in at once. Steve rolled from the bed into standing. The cell door was locked -- he got his customary painful shock when he touched it. Well, it had just been a thought.

Shaking his stinging hand, he returned to the side of the bed and crouched near the mouse hole. "Tony, uh, Mr. Stark? Are you all right?"

"Wonderful," came Mr. Stark's voice, creaky and tired. "It's just Tony, and you... you're an idiot."

"What?"

"Idiot," Tony repeated distantly. "They tased and tranquilized you, and you still beat two of them like it was nothing. Then, instead of running--"

"Are you saying I should have left you to die?" Steve demanded hotly.

"He's not going to give you another chance to escape. Stane's an egotist, not stupid. They making you into another Yinsen."

Steve blinked. "Come again?"

He heard Tony blow out a breath in frustration. "You think this little hole between our walls is a happy accident? They wanted us to talk. Bond. So in the future when one of us doesn't do what Obie wants--"

"The other gets hurt," he finished, one hand sliding into his hair.

"Yeah, and you reacted exactly as they wanted. Thanks for that." Tony's voice was caustic.

"Did this happen before?"

"Yep. Well--No. Sort of? During my first kidnapping."

"First--?"

"Old news. Really boring story, trust me." But the quick way Tony spoke told Steve otherwise. It wasn't boring, just something he didn't want to relive. "The point is, I knew you were trouble the moment I heard your voice."

 _But you still spoke to me, Steve thought_. He sighed. "I am not going to trade your life for my freedom. Stane will miscalculate again, or we'll find our own way out. Both of us."

There was a pause from the other side of the wall, then a defeated groan. "Oh my God, you _are_ Captain America."

"You're darn right I am."

Tony laughed low. "I thought you were some kind of hipster--you were using old slang ironically."

 _And I thought you were a little crazy, or a war defector,_ Steve didn't say _._ They were silent for a long moment. Steve squared his shoulders and tried to inject confidence in his voice. "We're going to get out of here, Tony."

His reply was unexpectedly small. Almost vulnerable. "Okay, Cap."

The annoyance and brief anger at being called an idiot had distracted him from everything else. Funny. That was the sort of thing Bucky used to do, when Steve was feeling down about being sick. But now the anger had burned out, he was left with questions he wasn't sure he was ready to hear the answer to, but needed to know.

"Tony..." he began, then took a breath.

"Seventy years Steve," Tony said gently as if he'd been waiting for the question. It still hit him like a sledge hammer to the gut.

Steve's voice was weak. "Are you..." Of course Tony was sure. "How is this..." How did anyone know how Dr. Erskine's serum had worked? "I'm just..." Gonna faint or pass out, if he hadn't been gifted with perfect human stamina.

Steve put his head between his knees anyway, breathing deeply. Seventy years.

"I'd offer you a drink," Tony said, "But I've left my liquor cabinet at home."

"I can't get drunk anyway," Steve said weakly.

"Not surprised. They were using elephant tranqulizers to knock you silly for five minutes."

"Yeah?" Steve wiped his hand across his eyes. It came back damp. He took another deep breath and tried to force the sudden tightness in his throat down and away. Stane had said he had an electronic eye on him, and Steve wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of seeing any weakness.

"This..." He grasped for something, anything to hold onto. "This is going to complicate our escape. I was, um, counting on everything being normal. Not... futurized."

Strange. He could almost hear Tony's grin in his reply. "Well, you're lucky you have me. I'm a genius. I'll be the brains, Cap. You be the brawn."

"Trade some of your brains for a hacksaw."

"Make it a laser cutter and you've got a deal."

"I don't know what that is," Steve admitted. "But I like the sound of it."

 

                                                           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got any theories on what landed Tony in here?


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I admit: Tony's first description of the future and cell phones is ripped from a Reddit discussion on the 1950's. I can't find the thread, but I used to pass by that quote posted on someone's cube every day at work. So there you are. It's not mine, but it was too good to pass up. :)
> 
> **Also warning for some minor torture in this chapter.**

"Tony, tell me something about the future," Steve asked, laying back on his cot, his hands folded under his head as a pillow.

"My info's a little outdated. Been here for awhile."

"Still."

Tony’s side of the wall was quiet for a long moment. Then, "People carry around devices in their pockets which have access to all the knowledge of mankind. Most use it to get in arguments with each other and look at pictures of cats."

Steve blinked upward at the ceiling. "Huh."

"Yep."

"What about jetpacks? Do men go to work in flying cars yet?"

Tony's chuckle held a dark edge. "People have a hard enough time driving on regular roads. Could you imagine flying?"

There was a certain sense to that, though Steve wasn't sure he appreciated Tony's cynicism. "What else?"

"Well, we put men on the moon."

"The moon." That seemed a little far fetched. "Let me guess. Not made of cheese?"

"No, we mostly bounced around, planted a flag of the good ol' USA, then flew back."

Was Tony joshing him? "You sure?"

"Pretty sure, Cap. There were pictures and everything." Tony paused again. "Music's evolved. When we get out of here, I'll show you rock and roll. Metal. Hip-hop will blow your star spangled mind."

Steve shook his head and turned on his side. _When we get out of here._ It had been a few days since he’d seen Tony, had learned… everything. It seemed every other minute the urge tickled the tip of Steve’s tongue to ask about how his friends had fared over the decades. About Peggy. Tony had only mentioned Howard once, and that had been in the past tense. He was probably dead

It was cowardly, but it was bad enough that Bucky was gone. Steve didn’t want to know about everyone else, too

Looking around this cell, he could almost imagine that this was all one complex trick. Easier to explain than being frozen through seventy years. But that way led madness. And how else did he explain the light in Tony's chest? Plus, Steve had never been very good at denial. Well, except when it came to being repeatedly 4F'ed from the army.

"We have a black president," Tony said into Steve’s silence. "Well, half-black. Mostly black. He identifies as black, so."

Steve barked out a laugh. Then he realized Tony wasn't joking. "Wait, uh, really? That's not... illegal? Coloreds and whites, um, getting together?"

"Brave new world," Tony confirmed. "And we don't say coloreds anymore, or probably whatever else you're thinking. I'll make you a list."

Huh. That was... huh. And blacks being elected into office. "Well... good," he said. "That's good. America is a melting pot... It should be that way."

"You sure you're okay? You're sounding a little faint."

"I'm fine," Steve said firmly.

"Good, because gay marriage is legal in some states, too. It might be national by now, who knows? As I said, I’ve been out of the loop."

"Gay--?"

"Homosexual," Tony said bluntly.

Now _that_ took the wind out of him.

"What?" Steve squawked. "Really?" He regretted it almost immediately. He wasn't a paranoid fellow, but what if Tony was... testing him somehow?

Tony laughed, but it wasn't a mean laugh. Not the laugh of a bully.

Steve didn't bother asking if that was illegal either. Forget the men on the moon, this was something he could not imagine. "You're telling me a fella can step out with... with another fella, and no one minds?"

"Or a lady with her girlfriend, or wife. And of course some people mind. We call them bigots." A pause. "You okay? Need me to shove a paper bag through the hole?"

Why would he...? Steve shook his head. "I'm fine. That... that's good, too."

He wasn't sure if Tony's pause was because he didn't believe Steve. But it _was_ fine. More than fine, though it hurt to think about. If Bucky were still alive...

 _He'd be an old man, like I'm supposed to be_ , Steve thought looking again at his hands. The smooth, young skin there. Would Bucky have wanted to get married if they could have? He’d always said he wasn’t the marrying type, but the years could change people. Would he have wanted Steve, though, if he wasn’t aging along with him

It hurt that Steve didn’t know the answer.

"Tell me more," Steve said to Tony, and mentally braced himself. He couldn’t ask about people he knew, but he could take small steps. "Tell me how the war ended."

“I’m an engineer, not a historian, Cap,” Tony warned. “But here’s what I remember from school…”                                            

 

****

 

Steve sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. Concentrate. Concentrate. He'd only get one shot at this. The electronic eye, the device Stane had told him was watching Steve was a good twenty-five feet away, set against the high wall. Not too far if Steve had his shield, but the pen he’d wheedled from Tony was much smaller.

He and Bucky had been shown how to throw knives it from a French resistance member -- Bucky had liked the idea, and picked up the trick quickly. Steve preferred to stick to his shield.

He wished he'd practiced more, but when needs were a must...

His arm barely cleared through the gap in the the electrified bars, and he could feel the current raising his hair as he pressed closer. Touching the bars would hurt, but he didn't let himself worry about that. He closed one eye, took aim, and flicked his wrist. The pen went end over end,  a perfect flip, then sank point-first into the round lens of the device. Sparks flew down in a brief shower.

Steve let out a single, breathy "Hah," and withdrew his arm. He hadn't even shocked himself.

He hurried back to his bed and sat down. It wasn't long before he heard two pairs of boots double-time it down the hallway. Tony said the guards would be immediately alerted, and he wasn't wrong.

As Dolly and Scarecrow came to a panicked stop, Steve flicked them a lazy solute.

"Fellas," he greeted, keeping his grin firmly back.

The men glared at him, then up at the eye -- Tony had called it a camera, though it looked nothing like the bulky instruments Steve had seen men lug around in Brooklyn before the war.

"I've seemed to have dropped something," Steve said. “Mind if you grab it for me?” He gestured to the pen, still lodged in the camera lens

Dolly shot an annoyed glare Steve’s way. “Mr. Stane will be told about this. And you can forget about dinner tonight.”

His taste buds wouldn’t miss the dry baloney sandwich, but his stomach gave a pang. “Give Mr. Stane my regards,” Steve said with a wintry smile.

He waited until the guards left before he bent to the mouse-hole. “It worked.”

"Really?” Tony said. “Nice shooting. They’ll just replace it in a day or two, you know."

He knew. “Until then, they won’t be watching me like I’m a zoo animal."

Tony made a sound of agreement. “Too bad you couldn’t boomerang it over here. I could have used the parts--Ohh. I could manufacture filament to use as string. Obie lets me use a soldering iron sometimes.”

“Could you whip up something to get us out?”

“With a standard camera parts? No. But maybe something to fuck with our captors some more.”

“Or create a distraction?” Steve asked, brightening. This sounded like the beginnings of a plan.

There was a telling pause. “If I can get ahold of the chip that broadcasts on wi-fi frequency, I might be able to get out a message in a bottle.”

Steve nodded once, though Tony couldn’t see him. “Get me the ‘string’ Mr. Stark. I’ll get your your wi-fi chip.” Whatever that meant. He had an idea to bring down the entire camera next time, though.

“Aye aye, Cap.”

Steve grinned to himself, despite the fact he was already hungry. He’d miss tonight’s meal, but it was worth it.

Turning around, he went to the middle of his cell and started push-ups. He had to keep active, keep focused.  Whatever happened next, he was going to be fit enough to fight back.

 

****

 

Steve wasn’t surprised when the doctor showed eight hours later, flanked by three of the guards. He was only surprised it had taken this long.

“Time for your blood draw, Captain Rogers,” the doctor said crisply. “Please present your arm in exchange for your meal.”

Steve stayed seated on his cot, well away from the bars. He didn’t miss the fact that one of the guards was armed with a dart gun. He was getting tired of being tranquilized. “What’s your name?” he asked, hoping to stall them.

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Well, you know my name. I should know yours,” he said and gave his ‘every war-bond is a bullet in your best guy’s rifle’ smile.

“Doctor Abanathy,” she said.

“Well, Doctor Abanathy, you should know I don’t agree with what you’re doing here. I especially don’t like that you’ve taken my and my friend Tony’s freedom away.”

He heard a muffled snicker from the direction of the mouse-hole. Tony was listening in.

Steve continued, “And I don’t intend to help you in any fashion.”

Doctor Abanathy frowned and the guards blinked at him as if he were speaking a different language. Steve thought he’d been clear enough.

“Captain Rogers,” she said after a moment. “You’ve been advised of your--unique--situation here.”

“Yes ma’am. Seventy years in the future.” He was proud of how matter-of-fact he sounded, though inside a voice still insisted, _It’s not true. It can’t be true!_

She took a step closer to the bars. “According to all military records, you’re dead. Project Rebirth was deactivated decades ago. You have no identity, no active social security number, no bank account. You do not exist. Mr. Stane owns you.”

“You can’t own another person, Doctor Abanathy.”

The quirk of a mile she gave him was oddly sad. “That’s where you’re wrong. Corporations have the same legal rights as people, and can file patients on lab-generated organisms. You are property of StaneTech.”

“Funny. I signed my enlistment papers with the US Government.”

“Will you cooperate?”

“Doctor Abanathy.” He looked straight at her. “If you want my blood, you’re going to have to shoot me with that dart gun and skew your test results to get it.”

She nodded. “I was afraid you’d say that.”  She nodded to the guards, and two of them peeled off down the hall. She wrote something in her clipboard, then looked back at Steve. “All reports say you have enhanced senses, including hearing. Is that accurate?”

Steve stared at her, not understanding. Then he heard Tony’s voice through the wall.

“Oh look, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. What do you want--Hey, what are you--knock it off! Shit!”

Then there was a meaty thump of flesh striking flesh.

Steve jerked to his feet. “What are you doing?” But he knew. And he was only grimly surprised when Doctor Abanathy raised her right hand to show a small black box between her thumb and forefinger.

She pressed it, the tip glowed red, and Steve clearly heard a sharp crack that sounded like a slap, and a pained groan from Tony. Abanathy was signaling the guards in Tony’s cell.

“That all you got?” Tony asked, voice slightly slurred.

“Stop!” Steve demanded, striding to the bars. But Abanathy’s face was impassive.

“Present your arm and allow us to take a sample, Captain.”

Through the walls, Steve heard Tony cursing -- he was probably putting up a good fight. Then Abanathy pressed the button again. The cursing cut off with an ominous thump against the wall.

“Don’t do this.” Steve heard his own voice break. “He’s a good man--” Another pained groan. “God damn it!”

“Captain,” Abanathy said patently. “You can put a stop to this right now.”

Yes he could. He should. Except he knew that they’d only leave Tony alone until they wanted another sample. Then it would begin all over again.  Steve clenched his fists and shook his head.

This time Abanathy held the button down.

“No, don’t--” he heard Tony say, pissed and scared, “I need that, you son of a--Don’t, you fucking--”

He couldn’t just stand by and listen to this. He couldn’t--

“You’re more valuable to Mr. Stane than he is,” Abanathy said, sending ice down Steve’s spine. It had to be true. Why else had Stane taken that device from Tony’s chest?

He heard something snap. Tony let out a hoarse scream.

They weren’t going to stop. Not until either Steve gave in, or...

Steve didn’t pause to think about what he did next -- the idea, a kernel of a plan, coming to him in a flash. He took three long strides to the wall separating the cells and punched, hitting the cinder block with the flat of his fist.

Sometimes he was still surprised by the body Doctor Erskine had given him. Up until the last two years of his waking life he had been too weak, too sick to be any use at anything. He’d half expected the bones in his hand to shatter. Not the cinder block.

“Tony!” he yelled, punching it again. The chipped concrete cut his knuckles, leaving red streaks behind. Stane’s people would get his blood somehow, but he didn’t care. He punched again, and the crack in the cinder block spread. Then a hole caved in the size of his eye. Gripping the edges, he tore at it. “Tony, hold on! I’m coming. I’m--”

Abanathy yelled an order to the one guard who had stayed behind.

The dart struck him right between the shoulder blades.

That was okay. If they focusing on him, they’d give up on beating Tony. But Steve wasn’t done yet.

He staggered, faster than the dizzying tranquilizer would have normally knocked him down. Playing it up. The guard was as gullible as he hoped, unlocking the door and coming in with that electric stunning device at the ready -- Tony had called it a taser.

Steve lurched up and knocked the man’s hand aside, bowling into the guard with the point of his shoulder. Something crunched, and Steve fought back a flash of vicious pleasure. This man wouldn’t hurt anyone for awhile at least.

The tranq was taking effect, darkening his vision around the edges. Steve straightened in time to see Abanathy backing down the hallway, calling for help. He took a step after her, then stumbled, stopping himself from leaning against the electrified bars at the last moment.

The guard was out cold -- Steve wasn’t sure what he’d done to him, but some futuristic device had slipped from the guard’s pocket onto the floor. It was square and white with a glass screen and a picture of a bitten apple stamped on the back. Steve scooped it up and tucked it into the waistband of his pants.

The hall beyond his cell was empty, but each step weighed him down. It used to take two darts to slow him this way, but he couldn’t…

.. and Abanathy was yelling for help… There were footsteps coming…

He couldn’t hear Tony…

Steve’s knees hit the cold concrete outside his cell. He scrambled for a second, fighting to rise, but then he was reaching, and Bucky… _Bucky_ was just out of reach. He was falling, and Steve wasn’t fast, wasn’t strong enough to save him.

  
  


****

 

Steve woke back on his hard cot, locked in his cell, with a chalky taste in his mouth and a cotton ball taped to the inside of his elbow. Stane’s people must have enhanced their knockout formula. He didn’t know how long he’d been out cold, but it took him three tries to get back on his feet and stagger to the sink. He cupped water into his mouth, and then poured a handful over his head to wake himself up the rest of the way.

They’d left no food tray behind, but he had other things to worry about.

The small hole he’d made in the cinderblock wall was still there. Maybe Stane’s people hadn’t known what to do about that. They didn’t strike Steve as the type to find a solution to a problem without first having an order.

Still unsteady, Steve halfway fell as he knelt by the mouse hole. “Tony?”

No answer.

Steve called again, then pressed his ear to the wall. In the silence, he could hear his own heartbeat.

Tony might be angry with him, but somehow Steve thought he wasn’t the ‘silent-angry’ type, which meant… Either they’d taken Tony away, or he was too injured to speak.

 _Or he’s dead,_ Steve thought, his empty stomach clenching.

His cut knuckles were already half-healed, but it didn’t much matter. Steve paused only long enough to rip his spare shirt into strips of fabric and wrap them around his hand.

Eyeballing the cinder block wall that separated one cell from another, he got to work.

 

 

  
  



	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been awhile since this one was updated, and thank you for your patience. We're almost done! :)

 

Even with his healing factor, Steve's knuckles were soon sore from widening the small hole in the cinderblock wall. To help, Steve broke off the porcelain top of his toilet tank, and used the corner to chip away at the cinderblock. Even then, his fingers stilled slipped enough to become bloody, and he made enough noise to put the construction crews in his old neighborhood to shame. The guards _had_ to know what he was doing, but they didn't come, nor was there any noise from Tony in the other cell.

That's what scared him the most.

Finally, after what seemed to be an hour, but was probably only half that, Steve had widened the cinderblock hole to about the size of his fist. Brushing loose bits away, he peered through... only to be met with a plate steel obstruction. Steve stared at it, his stomach sinking.

_You didn't think it would be that easy did you?_ he thought. But he had.

Maybe he'd grown used to hastily constructed Nazi and Allied outposts. He assumed the entire wall had been maybe two layers of cinderblocks. Not reinforced by sheer plates of steel through the middle. The mouse hole he and Tony spoke through went all the way to the other side, but they both knew it had been constructed on purpose.

No wonder the guards hadn't come by to check on the racket. They knew he couldn't leave.

Tired, discouraged, and with his hands sore, Steve sank down by the mouse hole, his back to the wall.

"Tony?" he asked as he had every few minutes, hoping. "You okay over there?"

No answer. What if they'd taken him away for good?

Steve tried and failed not to envision himself spending days, months, _years_ in this place all alone.

He put his head in his hands, and something cold shifted against his hip: The guard's little rectangular device that Steve had stuck in his waistband. He had forgotten about it.

With a glance to the hallway to make sure he was still alone, Steve took the little contraption out and gave it a closer look. It seemed to be smooth glass on one side, while the other was decorated with a simple picture of a bitten Apple. Near the bottom was stamped: iPhone.

His heart picked up speed. He didn't know what the "I" stood for, but "phone" could be short for telephone.

Steve turned the iPhone over and over, looking for any hidden compartment, switches or dials, or perhaps a place to plug in a cord

There was nothing. Then when he brushed a finger against the circle on the bottom, the glass lit up in a brilliant display.

ENTER PASSCODE flashed up on the screen above a spread of numbers.

Tentatively, Steve touched a few numbers and nearly dropped the little device in shock when it buzzed angrily, and asked him to reenter. He must not have done it right.

But below those numbers read: EMERGENCY.

Cautiously, Steve touched it.

The entire screen lit up red. Steve cupped the iPhone in his hands, hardly daring to breathe.

Then the screen darkened. NO SERVICE flashed up on the top.

"What does that mean?" Steve asked aloud. Of course, there was no answer. He bent his lips to the device. "Hello? I… I need help."

Nothing happened. He shook the iPhone, but the screen had gone completely dark again.

Steve spent the next hour pressing numbers onto the screen, all without success.

Frustrated, he set the iPhone aside and leaned against the wall, wishing he could ask Tony. What if he never came back?

Maybe this was his life now: Long days without company ahead of him, trapped in a world he didn't-- _couldn't_ \--understand, with people who saw him only as a lab rat. 

_I'll go insane_ , he knew.

 

* * *

 

Hours later, when his sensitive ears first picked up a quiet shuffling from the other side of the wall, he feared it was his imagination. He still bent by the mouse hole. "Tony?"

He got a pained groan in reply.

"Tony?" Steve asked again, hardly able to believe it. "You're there? You're okay, pal?"

"Ugh..." he heard. Then a hoarse cough, followed by what sounded like retching.

"What happened? What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Tony's voice was slightly slurred. "Concussion, I think? Or the whole world's spinning... oh."

The last part was said very, very quietly, and Steve realized he was clutching the iPhone so hard he heard an ominous snapping sound. He forced himself to relax.

"What is it?"

"Nothing. I just--just do me a solid and ignore anything you hear over here for the next few minutes."

Well, that was ominous. "Tony...?"

He didn't get a response, though judging by the shuffling and muffled pained groans, Tony had moved himself to the other side of the cell, as far away from the mouse hole as he could get. Steve's sensitive ears still picked up not a few swears, then a few hitched breaths.

He sat in place, trying to stay calm. That Tony was up and could move about was a good sign. But what had Stane's men done to him?

"Should I even ask?" Steve said, when he heard Tony shuffle closer.

There was a long pause. "They broke a couple fingers on my left hand--Still want me to be useful, my right's fine. Thanks Stane.-- And I had to set them. Not your fault."

Steve let out a long breath, tipping his head back against the wall. "The hell it isn't."

"You didn't give them what they wanted, did you? Your blood?"

He shook his head. "They tranquilized me, took a sample anyway. I'm sorry--"

"It's fine." Tony said, cutting him off. "I knew they'd use me for leverage against you sooner or later -- heads up, they'll probably do the same to you, when the new rocket blows up in testing."

"Swell," Steve muttered. Then, "Wait, you set-up one of their rockets to explode?"

"Eh, it will sooner or later. There's a materials stress threshold that -- nevermind. It doesn't matter. The important thing is, people who make me build weapons always get burned."

"Oh." Steve's eyes dropped to the little iPhone, which now had a hairline crack across the glass half. He didn't have much hope, but maybe Tony could do more with it than he could. Howard always had a way with radios, and even though telephones were different, it was worth a try. "Tony... The guard dropped something -- I scooped it up, but I think I broke it." He turned and shoved it through the mouse hole -- it was just large enough to fit, though he suspected the chipped cinderblock scratched the sides horribly.

The sound Tony made was somewhere in between a gasp and a groan. He snatched it immediately. "Where did you--is this--Steve, next time lead with this!"

He perked up. "I couldn't get it to work," _could barely make heads or tails out of it_ ,  he mentally amended.

"Oh you beautiful, ugly piece of machinery. You are divine. You are a beautiful disaster. I will never again besmirch the name Steve Jobs..."

"Tony?"

"Damn, you're right. No signal. Obie probably installed a jammer down here--Where's my pry bar? There's components I can use. The signal's too weak for a voice call, but text only requires a fraction of that power--"

"Text?" 

"Like a telegram."

"Wait. You're saying you can use parts of that to send a message out?"

"To Jarvis, yes, if he's still running. Maybe Pep, but she might think it was a hoax. Jarvis. Jarvis would be better."

Steve couldn't imagine for the life of him how Tony expected to do that. Maybe by Morse Code? And how did that require less 'signal' than a man's voice? Still, Tony seemed to know what he was talking about. "Is there anything I can do to help?" 

"Let me know if anyone's coming. That camera you broke still broken?"

Steve glanced up to confirm, though he knew it was. "Sure is."

"Okay, then keep a lookout. Mine isn't on my side, but I have enough here to shield what I'm doing. My hand's fucked, so it'll take longer than usual."

Steve had to work to suppress a slightly giddy laugh. Yeah, 'longer than usual' as if Tony broke out of high tech cells all the time.

But Steve did as he was told, and stood at the corner, ears open and mouth shut. He heard Tony mumble to himself; tech-speak that didn't make much sense to Steve no matter how he parsed it out. And it wasn't without a few more pained gasps while Tony tried to work with broken fingers.

Then, finally a quiet, "Wake up, Jarvis, Daddy's home."

Steve risked a glance down the empty hall, then went back to the mouse hole. "Any luck?"

"One minute--two! Make that two minutes!"

The excited note in Tony's voice sounded pure Howard, and Steve's mouth pulled into a smile.

He didn't want to distract Tony, but he wasn't able to keep back the rising excitement. "What can your man, Jarvis, do? Call the police?"

"Better. Once he gets into the systems -- ah, there." Steve heard typing and imagined Tony hard at work on that strange looking typewriter, the iPhone plugged in somehow. "Create a distraction, and give us time."

"But how?"

As if his words were an omen, the lights all blinked out, plunging them into instant darkness.

"Like that." Tony said, his voice both loud and smug.

Loud? Then Steve realized why -- ever since he'd woken up, there had been a low undercurrent of buzzing, so quiet that he had only been partially aware of it. That was gone. Steve didn't need any further direction. He rose from his crouch, strode the exact eight paces to the cell bars (he'd gotten to know them so well) and touched the bars.

Nothing. No shock at all. 

Steve grinned wolfishly. Then, wrapping a hand around each one of the bars, he set his feet in a firm stance and pulled.

It wasn't easy, and it wasn't often when he felt his own muscles straining, but desperation lent him even more strength. He grit his teeth, took a breath, and pulled again. Little by little, the bars separated until, turning sideways and sucking his breath in, he was able to just squeeze through.

It was utterly lightless in the hallway beyond, there being no windows or emergency lights.

He heard panicked shouts from what was probably the floor above: the guards scrambling for flashlights. They'd be there any moment.

He felt along the side of the wall until he came to the door leading up a flight of stairs. Locked.

Steve yanked sharply down on the handle and felt it snap in his hand. Then he pulled the door open and stepped to the other side, to the bottom of the dark, airless stairwell.

The guards were thumping their way down the stairs. Beams of light flashed overhead. Steve crouched in a shadowed corner, and waited. He'd played this game before, (apparently) seventy years ago, in twisting HYDRA bases.

He wasn't sure who the first guard was -- though he thought it might have been Dolly. The man stepped past him, dart gun already out and ready. Steve rose and struck. The flashlight on top of the gun spun crazily as it clattered down.

There were other shouts as the guards behind Dolly tried to stop and reorganize, but it was confusion in the close stairwell, and Steve was in his element. Locked in a small area with a supersoldier, they didn't have much of a chance.

Someone got off one good shot -- Steve felt the air of the dart whistle past his ear, but a moment later the final guard was down.

"Not so tough without your futuristic tranquilizers," he muttered as he grabbed up one of the dart guns and a flashlight, and started searching through the guards pockets. He found a second "iPhone" (though this one said Samsung on the back) and another one of those electric shock devices that had downed him a few days before.

He thought about shooting the unconscious men with a dart, give them a taste of their own medicine, but anything that could down Steve might pack enough punch to kill a normal man.

Flashlight in hand, Steve turned from them and headed back through the door, around the corner and to Tony's cell.

Even without the flashlight, Tony was easy to spot. The disk of glowing blue-white in the middle of his chest was as good as a target.

"Steve?" Tony asked, his voice holding a hopeful warble. "Please tell me that's you."

"It's me," he confirmed. He set the flashlight down briefly, curled his hands around the bars to the door, and gave it a solid yank. The metal hadn't been as reinforced as in Steve's own cage. The entire door gave way with a screech of protesting metal.

Tony drew close and the soft light in his chest highlighted his face from his chin upward. The shadows around his cheeks were deep, but they didn't fully obscure the hideous bruising around one eye and over his cheek. His left eye was swollen half-shut, and his left hand had strips of fabric tied around it in messy knots, covering a makeshift splint.

Steve swallowed and extended a hand to him to help him over the fallen door. "You ready to breathe a little free air, Mr. Stark?"

Tony's smile was pained from the bruising, but obviously genuine. He gripped Steve's hand hard. "Lead the way, Captain."

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the hardest parts of writing a multi-chapter fic is knowing where to end it. For me, the ending was always going to come shortly after Steve and Tony escaped. And here we are, at last. Thank you for reading and sticking with this fic. :)

 

 

It turned out that even Tony went quiet when the sun started to rise. As the eastern sky turned from dark to light purple haze with a sprinkling of clouds on the horizon, Steve felt his throat start to thicken with emotion. It had been... well, he'd lost track of how long he had been trapped in Stane's labs. Awhile.

Longer for Tony, of course.

"It's beautiful," Steve said, gripping the strangely plush steering wheel.

Hours earlier, when they'd escaped the lab, Steve hadn't quite been sure what he was looking at wasn't actually an automobile in the parking lot. The auto was odd; thin and sleek on the outside as if made of tinfoil and plastic, the inside overly luxurious with seats that looked like leather, but weren't. It looked like it was ready to take off and fly above the road.

Luckily, engines hadn't changed that much. The principles he'd learned while stealing HYDRA tanks still worked in this day and age.

With so many of Tony's fingers broken, it had been up to Steve to drive -- he'd had a moment of confusion when he 'd looked for and couldn't find the stick shift.

Tony had then told Steve it was an 'automatic', it shifts on its own, and, "Just press the gas, old man, and get us  out of here. No! Ex-nay on the headlights -- the less help we give the drones, the better."

Steve had wanted to ask what drones were, but wasn't sure he was going to like or understand the answer. "Where are we?" Steve had asked instead as he pulled out onto the road. He could see well enough in the dark, though there were no city lights, and what hills he could make out looked barren up until they met with a star-crusted sky.

Tony was twisted around in his seat, watching behind them for signs of pursuit. There were still alarms going off in the lab; doctors and techs scrambling around. No one seemed to notice one less car was missing from the parking lot.

"No idea," Tony said. "Desert? It looks like desert."

Nodding, Steve floored the gas petal. The responsive engine shifted smoothly, and the lab was soon a distant bright dot in the rearview mirror. Ahead of them stretched empty, black road.

"We should send a message to someone," Steve said. "People still have radios nowadays, right? Or we could get another iPhone?" Tony had made him leave the ones he'd grabbed from the guards behind: Apparently, they could be electronically tracked.

"OnStar."

"On what?"

Tony reached to press a button above the rearview mirror that Steve hadn't noticed.

"Call," Tony ordered clearly, and followed it by a string of numbers that seemed much too long for any sense. What happened with telling operators the last name of the party you wanted to reach? Or were there operators any longer?

The invisible telephone in the OnStar rang once before it clicked over to a polite English voice. "Welcome back, Mr. Stark. May I say what a pleasure it is to hear your voice again?"

"Thank you, JARVIS," Tony said with a grin that lit up his handsome face. "It's good to be back. Reports of my death are, as you can tell, premature."

"Jarvis?" Steve repeated, pleased. "That was a swell trick you pulled, cutting the electricity. Thank you."

"JARVIS, let me introduce you to Captain Steve Rogers. Update your files on the once and future Captain America," Tony said. "Steve, JARVIS is my AI -- artificial intelligence."

"A robot?" Steve asked, startled.

"I have no need of a physical form," JARVIS said smoothly.

_So, not a robot? But... artificial people_? Steve tried not to boggle too openly. Somehow he felt like he was going to be doing a lot of that.

"J, I need you to monitor the local airspace -- wait, where are we? Afghanistan? Lebanon?"

"Current Stark GPS satellite puts your location approximately forty-two miles outside of Reno, sir."

Tony did a slow blink. "Nevada. Okay that... I can work with that." He glanced at Steve. "Sorry, babe, we'll have to take a rain check on Las Vegas this time."

"I've already been," Steve said, and tried not to blush at the endearment. "USO tour. We stayed overnight -- nice town, but a little in the middle of nowhere."

Tony's smile would have done justice to any matinée idol. "It's grown a little since then. Speaking of," Tony glanced back to the OnStar button. "JARVIS, I have a little -- a _lot_ of catching up to do, and I don't know how much time I have. Make me proud. I need to know the state of all of my assets."

What passed was mostly incomprehensible to Steve, though it was interesting. It was a little uncomfortable, though, to hear a man's personal finances put out in the open. But Tony seemed to trust him.

However, Steve couldn't help boggling a little, though, at some of the numbers JARVIS threw out at them. Apparently, even with much of his assets "liquidated" after his death, Tony really was a multi-millionaire.

"Billionaire," Tony said with a sniff, when Steve mentioned it. "There's a difference."

He might have gone on to explain the difference between being filthy rich and super filthy rich, but by then Steve had spotted the lightening eastern sky.

And that's when Tony fell silent -- they both did. Watching the sun rise.

By the time he managed to tear his gaze away from it, he noticed Tony's eyes were a little wet. Tony glanced at him, then quickly looked away, affecting a shrug.

"Did you ever think of what it was going to be like?" Steve asked, "Getting free?"

"I never thought I would get out of there alive." Tony again raised his eyes to the morning sky. "Most people don't get a second chance, I got two."

"What do you mean?"

Then, in a slightly detached, monotone voice Tony began to tell Steve about his time in a cave in Afghanistan. About a man named Yinsen, who gave his life for Tony. How Tony escaped, about all the plans he'd laid out for himself -- promised -- while he staggered out of his metal suit and over sand dunes

"I was going to stop all weapons manufacturing. I knew Stark Industries would take a hit, but it didn't matter. I was going to change the world."

Tony's left hand had purpled and swelled in the joints overnight. So Steve laid his free hand on his forearm, giving him a gentle squeeze. "What happened?"

"Got spotted by the American military. Picked up by a Blackhawk -- a helicopter. I thought... I thought, here's my fairytale ending. My new life starts now." Tony's smile was as cynical as it was sad. "And you know even after everything I'd been through, I never questioned it when the Corporal in charge told me my pal Rhodey was leading a different search party -- that they were taking me to an American military base, and 'Here Mr. Stark let's hook you up to a saline drip. You're dehydrated...'"

"Stane's men?" Steve guessed.

"Got it in one. The Ten Rings were supposed to kill me. I messed with those plans, but Stane's adaptable. Now, eighteen months later I'm legally a dead man, and the company is his." Tony took a breath as if to steady himself, then blurted, "You know how I said awhile back that Stane was making you another Yinsen? I meant it. Still do. I'm a sinking ship, Cap. I'm only going to drag you down."

"You know," Steve said casually, "back in my neighborhood, my best friend Bucky and I, we... we had a saying: Till the end of the line."

Tony turned his head away, abruptly interested in the view out the passenger window. He hadn't, though, moved his arm from under Steve's fingers.

 

* * *

 

 

They stopped at a gas station a couple hours later, and stole a white pickup truck.

This time Steve felt a twinge of guilt for the theft. A little less so when Tony, via a 'blue tooth', called JARVIS and asked him to find the truck's owner's bank account, and replace what they just took with three times the retail value. (The actual figure was so much money that Steve was briefly struck speechless. Tony had mentioned inflation had marched steadily on through the decades, but...)

"Where to next?" Steve asked, trying to get his equilibrium back.

"We need clothes, supplies, somewhere to regroup. I can't just go back to my home -- or any of my homes," Tony said. "Stane will have people out looking for us. Probably some police officers in various districts, too."

Steve nodded. He'd been thinking about this, and calculating how fast news of their escape would travel. "Who do you trust?"

"I didn't trust many people even before Afghanistan," Tony admitted. "But, there are two--I'd trust them with my life -- and I guess I will, and yours," he added with a wry smile. "My best friend since college, Rhodey, and Pepper. She's my PA."

"Your what?"

"Secretary, though don't let her catch you calling her that. She... well, she probably has another job by now, but she'll remember me."

"I doubt anyone would ever forget you, Tony," he said wryly.

"I paid her well," was Tony's reply, "mostly in shoes. My god, that woman loved shoes." His voice was of affectionate exasperation.

"Okay," Steve said. "So we get ahold of them. Then what?"

"We can't contact them directly. Stane's sure to be monitoring them, especially now." Tony drummed his good fingers on the dash. "We need a plan."

"For an attack?"

"I like the way you think, Captain." Then Tony frowned, his gaze dropping to his broken left hand. "What we need is to come out in a big way. Lights, drama, something that can't be swept under the rug again by Stane's money."

"I did a fair stage show back in my time," Steve mused. He could almost laugh about it, now.

Tony did bark out a laugh. "I saw an old reel on that. But no, I'm trying to be responsible. I'm thinking more along the lines of a news conference, with you as my shadowy bodyguard. Whitney Houston soundtrack optional."

"What?"

"It's a movie. You'll love it." Tony tapped again on the dash. Tony moved around a lot, Steve was starting to notice. He wasn't the type of man who liked to be confined in one place -- being in that cell, in both his cells, must have been terrible. "What we need are powerful people Stane can't touch."

"Excuse me, sir," JARVIS said from the truck's speakers, causing Steve to jerk the wheel sharply in surprise. He had forgotten the AI was listening.

Tony was nonplussed. "Shoot, J."

"There has been quite a bit of interest surrounding your disappearance. A Mr. Phil Coulson from the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division has made several direct inquiries to Miss Potts within the last eighteen months. He has been... quite persistent."

"Strategic Homeland..." Tony started to parrot, then frowned.

Steve had gotten pretty handy at acronyms since joining the army. "SHIELD."

 "Never heard of 'em. New agency?" Tony asked.

There was a long pause from JARVIS. "Records indicate SHIELD is a moderately powerful intelligence agency under the umbrella of the executive house. It began as a successor agency to the Strategic Scientific Reserve, or SSR."

Tony and Steve exchanged a look.  

"Any known weapons contracts between SHIELD and StaneTech?" Tony asked sharply.

"Working," JARVIS said. Then, after another moment. "None found."

"If they're under the executive branch, they sound like they could be useful," Steve said.

"They sound like they're the men in black," Tony grumbled.

Steve flipped the turn indicator and pulled to the side of the road. Once they were safely stopped, he turned to Tony. "I don't see the harm in finding out what this Phil Coulson has to say."

" _I_   will see what they have to say. You're my big beefy bodyguard who broke me out of Stane's version of a sweatshop." Tony frowned, looked pensive. "But okay, yes. Point. I just..." he took another breath and met Steve's gaze. His dark eyes were serious. "Last chance to bail, Cap. I won't blame you. I'll have JARVIS set you up with a bank account under a fake name -- wherever you want to go, you--"

Steve kissed him.

He hadn't planned it -- had actually meant to tell Tony to stuff it. He wasn't the type to leave a friend in a lurch. But then he and Tony were so close in the truck's cab, and he was leaned forward as Tony was speaking, and it just... happened.

And Tony wasn't pulling away. He made a surprised noise that sounded a little like, "Nugh" and then he was touching Steve's jaw with his good hand, lips parting, kissing back.

It ended, a minute, an age later. Steve's heart thudding in his ears. He was cupping the back of Tony's neck and he didn't remember even doing it. "I'm not leaving," he said quietly. Roughly.

"Yeah..." Tony sounded slightly dazed. "I think I'm getting that."

Then he pulled Steve in and they were kissing again, deeper. More urgent.

Tony tugged Steve closer, urging him out of his seat and into his own. It was awkward, both the small space and avoiding Tony's broken hand. Then Steve figured out which lever to push to lean Tony's seat back. 

They made it work, after that.

 

* * *

 

 

Later, after the sun went down on their first day of freedom, Tony adjusted his rumpled shirt, ran his uninjured hand back through his hair, and gave Steve a long, look.

Steve nodded. It was now or never.

Tony said, "JARVIS?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Place a call to Phil Coulson."

 

 

 

The end.

 

 


End file.
